Chapter Text
"Eye Movement Detected."
I'm pulled out of sleep with the sound of Armando. I groggily think to myself how I still find it weird that I named him Armando and generally think of him as masculine, while he has a more feminine voice.
"Eye Movement Detected. Good morning, Dr. Grace."
I sigh, rolling from my side onto my back. My eyes still shut tight.
"Five more minutes. Please. Spare me, Armando."
"Good morning, Dr. Grace."
I blink open my eyes and stare up at Armando. He hangs on the railing the Eridians built that go throughout my entire house, kind of like a sliding door but just…Really long. It allows Armando to access the entire house instead of staying in one area. Right now, Armando is staring directly above me. Not creepy at all.
"Eye Movement Detected."
"Yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time."
After sitting up, humanities Most Expensive Alarm Clock starts moving into the kitchen to make me my morning cup of Notffee. That's what I call the synthetic caffeine powder dissolved in hot water that the Eridians made for me. Those guys will literally make me anything I want, it's actually kind of cool.
I slip out of my bed and stretch, my bones cracking as I do. I wasn't exactly "Young and Spry" when I left Earth, and being on a planet with twenty nine times the atmosphere of Earth doesn't help with my bones. Soon enough I'll need a cane, and maybe eventually a wheelchair. I try not to think about that too hard.
I walk over to my closet and grab one of my shirts. In faded print, it says "I wear this shirt periodically" with the periodic table printed on it. Kind of ironic, considering how faded the design is. I find a pair of clean Eridian-made pants and head out to the kitchen. Armando is already there with a mug of Notffee in his hand. I smile and grab it from him.
"You're too kind, Armando."
"What's two plus two?"
Little backstory, Armando doesn't have much speech programmed into him. He's not really meant to talk anyways, the Hail Mary is where all the important information was. Therefore, our conversation get a little dull after a while. I could probably try coding in some more phrases, like: "You're welcome!" "Of course!" "Dr. Grace your science puns are so funny!" "How about you add this to your lesson plan! The kids would LOVE it." but I don't think that would work out well.
I move over to the big window in the middle of the room and pull back the blinds. Sunlight (or, notlight, I guess. Considering the sunlight is artificial. It's kinda like vegan bacon. Fakeon.) Outside my window is a beach. My beach. My wonderful beach with grains of sand that are slightly too big because Eridians can't seem to get it right.
And I get to call this place my home. How lucky am I?
The beach goes on for several miles, reaching a cliff that reminds me of Rocky. Its made of oxidized minerals, just like everything else in this place, so it has a similar colour to Rocky. I named it Rocky's Point.
After staring outside my window for a couple minutes and sighing contentedly, I stop when I realize I'm doing exactly what my father would do every morning before I had to go to school. He'd have a mug of coffee in his hands and he'd be in his disgusting bath robe, and he'd just. Stare into our backyard. And sigh. I never understood why he did it.
I get it now.
God, I'm old. Next I'm gonna ask the Eridians to make me a nine-hole golf course, complete with a little buggy for me to get around in.
My self pity doesn't last very long though, because theirs a rapid knock on my door. I know it's Rocky before I even see him. How do I know that, you might ask? Spend close to five years in a cramped spaceship with the guy and you'd know. I could point the guy out blindfolded if you just let me hear him tap his fingers together when he asks a question.
I leisurely make my way over to the front door, Rocky's knocks getting more and more desperate as I do so. When I open the door, hes not in his xenonite suit. He's back in his little hamster wheel thing he would be in on the Hail Mary. Odd, I think.
Then I notice his tablet. Gotcha. It's hard to use an Eridian tablet in an almost skin tight xenonite suit.
"Hey, Rocks! What's goi-"
Before I can even finish my sentence, Rocky barrels into my house at almost full speed. Hes clearly rusty with maneuvering the ball, and he starts knocking into my furniture. My furniture! He almost knocks over my framed pictures of Ilyukhina and Yáo with their families. I chase after him and pick up any dropped possessions of mine.
Now, I'm fluent in Eridian by this point. But the chords Rocky was making made absolutely no gosh-darn sense. His pitch is so high it hurts my ears trying to listen to him.
"Rocky. ROCKY!!" I put my hand up. This is oddly reminiscent of when he first came onto the Hail Mary.
Rocky stops and turns his carapace to "look" at me. He takes what I can only describe as a deep breath (something he got from me, I might add) before speaking slower and in a lower octave.
"Apologies. Rocky has exciting news that Grace needs to hear! Very important!!!"
"Slow down a bit bud. I have to go to work soon, can it wait a little bit?"
"No! Cannot wait! Need to tell you now now now!!"
Jeez, he sure is pushy today! And he's gone back to using the repeating-word-three-times-to-emphasize bit. We don't do that as much now, because I can understand his tone better after years of practice.
"Okay, then give me a second! I haven't even had breakfast yet!"
"Stupid human digestive system. Rocky wait in living room."
"Rocky wait in living room." I repeat, walking into the kitchen. "Don't break any more of my stuff, please?"
"Rocky is, as human say, 'rusty' with ball."
I roll my eyes and meet Armando in the kitchen. He has a plate of toast with me-bacon(NOT fakeon! Take that vegans!). I take the plate from him and walk back to the living room, setting the plate on the table and sipping my coffee
"Okay. What is so important that you almost break my lovely house to tell me?"
"Space Mission. You remember Space mission Eridians are on to explore Solar System with dying star. Yes?"
I nod. "I remember. Theyre scheduled to be back in a couple months, right?"
"Yes! Rocky with science Eridian today, fixing up new engine for other project, when they notice radar has blip on it. We first thought was Asteroid, maybe space debris. It was ship!! Space Mission Ship come back much early!"
I lean closer to Rocky in my seat. Okay, that's…Not good. If a Spacecraft is back early that usually means either something went wrong with the mission or something went wrong with the ship itself. "What happened? Were the Eridians inside okay?"
"Yes! We make contact today. Ship is fine, All Eridians counted for. Mission cut short because of discovery."
I pause. "Discovery? What does that mean?"
Rocky taps his fingers together impatiently, he looks like hes about to burst with excitement.
"Astronaut Eridians find life! Other Spacecraft! They make contact with it, but aliens inside reject meeting."
I take a minute to process that. Holy moly. There are other intelligent beings like Humans and Eridians. It's still as cool discovering that a second time.
"Not all! More! Much much more!"
"There's MORE???"
Rocky is pacing back and forth in his ball now. "Radar on ship find that on moon, there is Anomaly. Look like ocean on moon. Moon is not supposed to have ocean. Radar picks up Anomaly in ocean." When I don't speak, Rocky Continues.
"Engineer Eridian create long chain, like when we go fishing, and they rescue Anomaly in ocean. It look like Spacecraft, but for Ocean. No have word for this in Eridian."
My mouth is agape. "Submarine? They found…a submarine?"
"But there even more. They hear life inside submarine. Heartbeat. Human heartbeat. Eridian Astronauts find human life!!! They cut mission short to bring Human back to Erid!!"
My cup of Notffee clatters to the ground and shatters. I stand up so fast my knees crack in protest.
"Human in bad shape. Bad bad bad shape. Still asleep from journey. Going to arrive today, Eridian Scientist want you there to bring them to dome."
Holy shit. I'm gonna meet another human being. Today.
I fall to the ground and start crying. Rocky has to bump his ball against me to comfort me. I don't have it in me to tell him these are happy tears.